You have positive and negative feelings. Negative feelings include feelings such as fear, disgust, sadness, irritation, anger, depravity and feeling terrorized. You would say you want to avoid these kinds of feelings.
Looking up negative feelings
Interestingly, though, people consciously seek out these kinds of feelings when they go to watch a horror movie like Saw. Why would you do that? And what does this say about how bad negative feelings are? Why do extreme athletes engage in mortal combat just to perform a certain stunt? Why do so many people play Shooters or other violent games? What is good about negative feelings?
The interesting thing is that in horror movies, negative feelings and positive feelings can arise simultaneously due to certain emotional events in the movie. So feelings are not an either-or condition, but you can have multiple types of feelings at the same time.
Depending on your preference for horror movies, you may actually feel very good when the movie ends. In that case, relief ensures that the negative feeling of the horror movie is not so bad[1].
Fortunately, we can also distinguish reality from film, which is why some people can still very much enjoy a lurid horror movie.
Do negative feelings mean you have poor well-being?
The example of horror movies shows that negative feelings are not always an isolated thing. You can experience them and also experience positive feelings at the same time. This is important to realize, because negative feelings do not necessarily mean that your life is not good.
As long as you have enough positive feelings to counter it[2].
If your well-being is diminished it is often due to negative feelings such as anxiety, depression and (emotional) pain[3].
Effects of negative feelings
Negative feelings can have all kinds of consequences. In fact, some people cannot find a good way to deal with those negative feelings, and their strategies for dealing with them ultimately do not help them.
For example, many people can try to eat away their negative feelings. This can trigger binge eating in people with bulimia[4]. Whether you vomit after eating or not, either way this is not good for your body.
Other people can shop away their negative feelings. In this case, you are somewhat materialistically inclined and at times when you suffer from negative feelings, which are also about yourself, buying certain items can make your ego feel good again[5]. This in turn can cause you to get into financial trouble, which in turn is not helpful for your materialistic preference and then the cycle can repeat itself again.
Boys can also suffer from aggression due to negative feelings. Aggression is not a solution, of course, but it can be cathartic, as you move an unpleasant feeling out of your body. Only if you do not do this in a controlled way, as in kickboxing, but simply on the street, then that is also not a convenient way to deal with negative feelings[6].
Hypnosis against going well on negative feelings
There is a disorder in which people actually go very well on negative feelings, the theatrical personality disorder. These are people who find it necessary to have drama in their lives. This is because their self-esteem depends on other people and those other people's reactions to them, rather than depending on how they see themselves.
One reason for this may be that parents could not take good care of them, so they thought they had to manipulate their parents to get care. After all, an angry parent is better than a parent who completely ignores you. Then a pattern emerges to somehow emotionally influence people just to get attention in their lives.
Beliefs people with this disorder may have are:
"I'm not good enough to take on life on my own."
"I need to be loved by everyone."
People who suffer from this disorder often also suffer from borderline, narcissism and dependency.
Researchers indicate that hypnosis can be used to help people who suffer from this[7]. Because in the end, all that drama is not nice to have either, even if you feel like you need it. In the long run, you are not left with family and friends who want to hang out with you. In the long run, no one makes sense to always have drama with a certain person.
Hypnosis to resolve negative feelings
Whether you need it because of negative feelings to trigger negative feelings in others or resolve it in other awkward ways, such as eating, shopping or even scratching yourself, hypnosis can help you resolve those negative feelings and deal with them in a different way.
You may suffer from negative feelings due to a variety of problems in your life, but hypnosis can always help.
One problem some women suffer from is premenstrual dysphoric disorder. If you suffer from this, you often also suffer a lot of negative feelings. This is somewhat different from PMS.
Research shows that hypnotherapy helps then suffer less from all these negative feelings. In the therapy used in the study, these women were helped with mind flexibility, changing their outlook, strengthening their ego, being able to cope with pain (including emotional pain) and suggestions to live optimally just like other people[8].
Strengthen flexibility of mind
Strengthening thought flexibility can include exercises that show you can change your thoughts. Inverting or visualizing thoughts and then doing something with that visualization can already do a lot to show that you don't necessarily have to see a particular thought when it comes up as one that is true.
Changing view of the problem
Beliefs about how the world works and how you belong and can function in it can create negative feelings if, for example, you feel that something you want to do is something you cannot do.
Changing those beliefs will then help you change your view of the problem that makes you feel uncomfortable, which will then resolve those negative feelings.
At the HIN, you learn regression in the initial training, which is an important technique to help change one's outlook on a problem. In regression, you go back to a time in your life when a belief arose that is now causing negative feelings.
Next, you will reinterpret this moment. The hypnotherapist then helps you with that (how to do that as a hypnotherapist you learn at the HIN). That new interpretation causes your beliefs about how the world works and how you belong and can function in it to change and that then also changes your view of the problem. As a result, the problem no longer causes negative feelings.
Strengthening your ego
Strengthening your ego can also be thought of as strengthening your self-confidence. You are then often encouraged to repeat certain suggestions such as:
"I can do anything."
"I'm good enough."
"A thought is just a thought."
"I am worthy of love."
These are just examples. Depending on what you are getting negative feelings from, you can get other suggestions to strengthen your ego. You can also get them in a you form instead of the I form.
Suggestions for optimal living
As for suggestions for optimal living, that can be done in several ways. For example, with a progression, you can visualize a kind of future image and then also visualize how you take the steps to reach that point. This is a technique that is taught in further training of the HIN. This is a more advanced technique.
In addition, you can also get post-hypnotic suggestions, such as how good you feel after hypnotherapy or how easily things come off to you and the like. This can also help you subconsciously focus more on what is going well, which will also help you suffer less from negative feelings.
Negative feelings are often a reaction to a thought or event. That reaction often comes from unconscious beliefs, which is why hypnosis can be so helpful in addressing negative feelings. In fact, hypnotherapy allows you to change unconscious beliefs.
Want to learn more about hypnosis? Then come to a free online master class on hypnosis.
You can also come to a seminar or enroll in one of Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' courses .
Sources:
